


hamartia

by esmeybe (brooklynisosm)



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dumb boys being dumb, M/M, Yotsuba Arc (Death Note), there is no story here just fucking. flangst, yotsuba arc light is still a little shit, your honor they're in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27346426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brooklynisosm/pseuds/esmeybe
Summary: Light is more interesting than anything he’s ever read before, and L can’t stop turning the pages.I'm in LawLight hell. my brain is rotted. my life is ruined. i am Always thinking about Them.
Relationships: L/Yagami Light
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	hamartia

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for a writing class but just. without names. and without any specific references to Kira. Then I turned it in for a grade. 
> 
> Also it was just my 18th bday! happy bday me

L cannot stop thinking of Light. 

Light is not a good person. But he is a good story. L’s never been able to resist that. Not when he was five years old, sneaking into the bookstore next to the alley where he slept, devouring low-shelf mystery novels with grubby hands and an eager child’s eyes. That fascination never faded, even after Watari found him and brought him to a new home, even after he solved his first case, and then another, and then another. Not after he read every book in the Wammy’s house library; not when A died, not when B left and turned up again dressed up like L and torturing victims in LA. What a good story that had made. 

But Light is more interesting than anything he’s ever read before, and L can’t stop turning the pages. 

He is here in front of L, as he always is now, pushing away his sleep-daze. The morning light is gauzy and golden in his eyes, painting across his cheekbones and soaking through his hair. It drips from his fingers like honey, thick like blood, and L is terrified and enchanted all at once. It doesn’t make sense, how he shines like gold and glitter and everything good, and yet L knows that Light could kill him. He will kill L, if he feels that is what he has to do. He will drown L in his grace, and L won’t be able to do anything but sink. 

He could try to swim away through the shadows, but he knows it’s useless. The fire will always find him, burn his skin away until there’s just his bones and blood and the darkness that lurks in his soul. Soon those will be gone too, because when Light wins he must win completely. To him, L is just another shadow to destroy. 

He would never say that, though. He hides his hatred behind beaming smiles; he tries to shine the sun in everyone’s eyes to blind them to his loathing, but L can see him anywhere. Even with his eyes closed, even in the dark. L has memorized Light, and knows his tricks. Light can’t hide, not really, not with him. He sees past the glow. 

Sometimes he wishes he didn’t. 

Like now, when Light turns those golden eyes on L. “Are you alright?” he asks, with convincing concern. If L tried hard enough, he could pretend it wasn’t an act. 

“Fine,” he says, the lie passing easily through his lips. 

“You were staring at me.” 

“You are easy to stare at.” 

Light smiles a little at that. “Flattery won’t get you anywhere.” 

L rolls onto his back, the pillow pressing his hair into his neck, the chain clinking. “Not flattery if it's a statement of fact,” he says. “You are a very pretty person. You know this about yourself.” 

Light’s smile grows bigger, wickeder. “Maybe I don’t. You should tell me more.” 

L turns his face away. “No.” 

Light’s hand comes up to touch L’s cheek. He turns L’s face back to his and once again, his eyes are disarming. A weapon, just like his tongue and his smile and his mind. L does not resist. 

“You’re not pretty,” Light says. 

L says nothing to that. He knows it’s true.

“Not pretty, or handsome. You’re kind of ugly.” He runs his finger along the line of L’s cheekbone, brushing under his eye. “You look sick. Always tired. Your dark circles are horrible.” He traces the bridge of L’s nose, coming to rest his fingertip on chapped lips. “Your nose is too long and pointy. Your lips are too small. Not to mention—” With this, he moves to grip L’s hair, pulling it thick and tight in his fist. “Your hair is too messy. It’s almost as if you don’t care.” 

“I never have cared,” L says, and it is the truth. “I still don’t.” That part is a lie. 

“You’re not pretty,” he says again. “I don’t know why you’re beautiful.”

L’s heart stops for one terrible, glorious second. Kira does not need his name to kill him. 

The morning light trickles through his eyes, falls on his mouth, on his treacherous tongue. He has gotten so good at lying that L really does believe him. 

“Eye of the beholder,” L says quietly. 

“Maybe,” Light says, and pulls on his hair, and kisses him. 

_ Plot twist,  _ L thinks, though it is not. 

Perhaps this  _ is _ Kira’s new method. Burn L from the inside until there is nothing left, until whatever strength he once had is gone, now just another willing believer of Kira’s lies. L lets himself be kissed, and kisses back, and the shadows in his chest dance with the sunbeams in Light’s. The chain twists around them, and they are tangled up in one another. Even as he is twisted tighter, L is coming undone at Light’s hand, but maybe, he thinks, he is breaking Light as well. 

Maybe they are both each other’s hamartia. 

So, maybe, L lets himself like these things he shares with Light. It will end in tragedy. The best stories are tragedies. 

L’s life has never been worth much more than a good story. 

**Author's Note:**

> but then it's FINE THEY END UP BEING FINE AND THEY GET MARRIED AND SOLVE CRIMES TOGETHER AND ADOPT MELLO AND NEAR UHHHGH


End file.
